Guild Wars 2 is an online RPG developed by ArenaNet, and continues the subscriptionless business model of the original Guild Wars. The game is set about 250 years after the events of its predecessor in a world devastated by the ancient elder dragons resurfacing after millennia of slumber.

GW2 to be region locked

Physically locked that is. The servers themselves will not be region locked. Euros and Americans and everyone else will be able to play with each other in-game. It only affects where people can log in from.

From their Facebook page:

"Is my copy of Guild Wars 2 tied to my region?

Yes. To play from North America you must purchase a North American copy of the game. To play from Europe you must purchase a European copy of the game. Note that this restriction impacts where you can play from, not which game worlds you can choose to play on.

By purchasing the correct copy of the game, you're supporting the game in your country, and you'll be connecting to your local data center, using your local customer support team, and downloading the correct language support for your country.

~RB2"

And follow-up:

"Here are some answers and clarifications for you! First, if you purchase the game from https://buy.guildwars2.com/ you'll automatically be sorted into the right region.

And don't worry -- we want you to play with your friends wherever you are. This policy only affects where you can login from -- not which worlds you can access. People from NA will be able to play with people from EU at launch. We've got two datacenters -- one in NA and one in EU. Those who do not fall into either of those two regions will default to the NA datacenter.

Finally, we are aware that a lot of our players travel, and we are looking into a solution for you.

Hope that helps some! ~RB2"

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As someone who travels between Europe and NA frequently for long periods I don't like this at all. The solution will inevitably be a region unlock code. This just sounds like a quick cash grab by NCsoft.

@UssjTrunks: Oh, my bad. I didn't read that correctly the first time through. I thought it sorted you after your first log in, but now it sounds more like it is an embedded feature. I don't see the necessity for this.

The region lock is probably for their data centers, and customer support. They probably want to keep them separate, and avoid a lot of issues. Its probably a hassle for them if you call support in NA but all your data is in the EU data center or vice-versa. Although it is the World Wide Web, managing data for mmo's across regions is still a pain since i'm assuming the server setups and infrastructures vary enough to make it a pain.

Secondly they probably want to avoid an influx of EU players on NA data centers, since the NA data center will cover NA, Asia, Oceania, and i have no idea if South America, or Africa are covered.

This seems like one of those realities of business. Sure, it's unfortunate, but a lot of planning has gone into how they want to go about structuring servers, and if enough people circumvent that then they might as well be tossing money into a furnace.

@Benny: I understand that it's different than server region locking. However, let me explain:

I will be buying the NA version of the game. This presumably means that, in order to play on my account, one has to be connecting to the game in NA.

Now, let's say that a Russian person manages to get my account information, and attempts to log on and steal my stuff. He won't be able to, barring some proxy services that may not even work for the purposes of an MMO. This makes the region locking a form of basic account security. Sure, it may not work at protecting people all the time, but it's better than nothing at all.

@Benny: I understand that it's different than server region locking. However, let me explain:

I will be buying the NA version of the game. This presumably means that, in order to play on my account, one has to be connecting to the game in NA.

Now, let's say that a Russian person manages to get my account information, and attempts to log on and steal my stuff. He won't be able to, barring some proxy services that may not even work for the purposes of an MMO. This makes the region locking a form of basic account security. Sure, it may not work at protecting people all the time, but it's better than nothing at all.

But at the same time, if you move to Russia yourself, and try to log on, you won't be able to. In that respect, it's also an inconvenience. Hopefully this is cleared up before the pre-purchase date and it doesn't involve me having to pay anything extra to play the game from a different region.